Saturday, June 18, 2011
First Lines: Christina Stead - The Man Who Loved Children
All the June Saturday afternoon Sam Pollit's children were on the lookout for him as they skated round the dirt sidewalks and seamed old asphalt of R Street and Reservoir Road that bounded the deep-grassed acres of Tohoga House, their home.
Friday, June 17, 2011
William S. Burroughs: My Education. A book of Dreams
I climb to the top floor of a vast warehouse by iron stairs and ramps, a big bare room with windows I can look five hundred feet down. I have come here, of course, to soar down. Need something to break out a window. An iron bar or perhaps a barstool- - like the man who broke a glass door in the Milky Way in Amsterdam and Benn Posset shielded me with his body?
New Stuff: Neil Young
A live album documenting a 1985 concert at the time of Neil Young's country album Old Ways, so it's heavy on country tunes, but with some great sprawling electric guitar songs as well.
Wednesday, June 15, 2011
First Lines: Mark Oliver Everett - Things the Grandchildren Should Know
I was driving through the pitch black Virginia night, down the perfectly flat blacktop that was once a railroad track, across that high bridge over the ravine, thinking about the details of how one night I was going to drive off it.
Tuesday, June 14, 2011
Giant (1956)
Sprawling epic covering the life of a Texas cattle rancher and his family and associates.
Carefully and tastefully produced epic, but overlong and a bit tedious.
Saw IV (2007)
During the autopsy of jigsaw the coroner finds a tape inside his stomach and calls the police.
Competently made shocker, but told in a complex way in flashbacks from previous parts of the series.
Monday, June 13, 2011
First Lines: Theodore Roszak - Flicker
I saw my first Max Castle movie in a grubby basement in west Los Angeles.
The Postman (1997)
In post-apocalyptic America what begins as a con game becomes one man's quest to rebuild civilization by resuming postal service.
Despite the ridiculous plot and many critics' claims this movie is not that horribly bad, just merely mediocre (and way too long).
The Missing (2003)
In 1885 New Mexico, a frontier medicine woman forms an uneasy alliance with her estranged father when her daughter is kidnapped by an Apache brujo.
Well-made western with a True Grit-like plot, despite all its credentials it's simply way too long.
